In-line with the present government of Lithuania’s plan of developing the country into a leading European Union startup hub by 2020, DESICO has received a letter of support from the Lithuanian Ministry of Economy (Lietuvos Respublikos Ūkio Ministerija) thanks to its business model of allowing startups to issue and trade tokenized securities in full compliance with the law.

In the ministry’s letter of endorsement, Lithuania’s Minister of Economy, Virginijus Sinkevičius, outlined his and the ministry’s support for DESICO’s vision, and praised it for the improvements it will make to Lithuania’s startup ecosystem.

“The Ministry of Economy [of the Republic of Lithuania] supports the development of the DESICO security platform in Lithuania, thanks to the business’ creation of a safe environment for startups and investors to develop financial and blockchain technologies,” wrote Sinkevičius. “This is in-line with the current government’s ambition of making Lithuania one of the EU’s most progressive financial technology centres by 2020.”

The Lithuanian government has outlined a plan, which aims to increase the number of startups registered and operating within Lithuania from its current number of around 400 to 1,000 within the next two years.

The dedication that this Baltic country with its population of just 2.8 million is showing towards the development of its startup community is evident with its introduction of the Crowdfunding Law of the Republic of Lithuania on December 1st 2016.

Earlier this year, the opening of the Blockchain Centre Vilnius in the capital, plus the launch of the Startup Lithuania and Enterprise Lithuania initiatives further underlined Lithuania’s commitment to its crypto future.

Lithuania’s Law on Crowdfunding makes it one of the few countries in the world, and the only European Union member state to operate on this type of legal basis. The law allows a legal enterprise to establish a debt and equity-based crowdfunding platform.

Lithuania’s crowdfunding law also means ICOs are overseen by the country’s legal and financial institutions, meaning startups registered in — yet not necessarily from — Lithuania are able to issue fully legally compliant security tokens.

At the time of writing, Lithuania ranks third behind only the United States and China in terms of capital raised through ICOs in 2018. According to CoinMarketCap, Lithuanian-registered startups have raised over EUR 500,000,000 from Initial Coin Offerings and blockchain-based businesses over the past year alone.